Doll's "baby babble" raises eyebrows for some parents

The holiday shopping season will soon be upon us but parents looking for a new doll may want to avoid one.

One particular doll from Toys R Us appears to use a curse word.

Action News picked up the dolls - the "You and Me Play and Giggle Triplets" - from the Toys R Us store in Clovis. One of the dolls appears to have a potty mouth.

They look and sound adorable with their baby talk but the one with the pink hat makes you cringe with one phrase.

We took the doll to downtown Fresno to talk with moms to see if they heard the same thing we did.

"Oh my gosh, it did not just say that! Oh. Yeah that's a bad word," Danielle Bryant of Tehachapi said.

The maker of the dolls says they encourage girls to share love and kindness.

Another mom shocked by what she heard.

"Oh my gosh, I have grandchildren and I would not dream of buying something like this for my grandchildren," Maria Stanziale of Fresno said.

But Toys R Us won't be pulling the dolls off store shelves. Company spokesperson Jennifer Albano told Action News, "we would never sell a doll that would say profanity. What you're hearing is baby babble."

"No that's not baby gibberish. I have three kids. I know what baby gibberish is," Bryant said.

Kathy Ervine is an early childhood education specialist at Fresno City College. She finds it disconcerting little ones could learn a bad word while playing with their favorite toys.

"Whether it is or not is really not the point. It's the fact that it sounds that way and it could be and a child could definitely repeat it," Ervine said. "They may not know what it means but they will repeat it."

Rene Perez took down the name of the doll to make sure her granddaughters didn't get it.

"Oh, that didn't sound right," Perez said.

Similar complaints about the You and Me Play and Giggle Triplets have been heard around the U.S. but againToys R Us says it won't pull the product. We found not all of the dolls in question said the bad word.